December 9, 2024 • 39 mins
On May 12, 1990, Ron Hilgenberg and his wife were driving in South Dakota on Interstate 90 when a passing vehicle opened fire, killing the 76-year-old man. Stacy Larson and two of his friends were charged with his murder despite no physical evidence linking him to the crime, and what his attorneys called an iron-clad alibi. Stacy was convicted and sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
If you have information on Stacy's case, please call: (612) 624 4779
or email us at: info@gn-ip.org
To learn more and get involved, visit:
Great North Innocence Project
https://www.greatnorthinnocenceproject.org/
Wrongful Conviction with Maggie Freleng is a production of Lava for Good™ Podcasts in association with Signal Co. No1.
We have worked hard to ensure that all facts reported in this show are accurate. The views and opinions expressed by the individuals featured in this show are their own and do not necessarily reflect those of Lava for Good.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Thank you for using GTL.
Speaker 2 (00:02):
Stacy. Yes, it's finally happening.
Speaker 1 (00:07):
Yes it is.
Speaker 3 (00:13):
Stacey Laarson and I have been speaking for years. I've
been trying to get him on my podcast. He wrote
me a letter back in twenty twenty.
Speaker 1 (00:21):
Yeah, like four or five years ago.
Speaker 3 (00:23):
It was one of many.
Speaker 4 (00:25):
How many letters do you think you've written over the years?
Speaker 1 (00:29):
Oh geez, oh geez, well over one hundred. E's probably
a couple hundred.
Speaker 2 (00:41):
Were you just writing anyone and everyone.
Speaker 1 (00:44):
I've heard about podcasts they get out there. I mean
they're all over the world. So I've seen stuff like
that on TV, like TikTok and stuff like that. People
got podcasts on things and stuff. Hey, I got nothing
to lose by trying. I got more to gain if
I get in. I'll write it. Anybody try anybody. You
just don't know.
Speaker 3 (01:06):
Stacy is even on prison pen pal.
Speaker 1 (01:08):
Sites hoping some of that might read is Hey, I
almost see what this kids above. Maybe I could help
them and stuff like that.
Speaker 3 (01:16):
Stacy's doggedness to prove his innocence paid off twenty years
ago when the Great North Innocence Project took on his case,
but over the decades, his attorneys have run out of
avenues to pursue.
Speaker 5 (01:28):
We have believed for a very long time that Stacy
is innocent, and so this podcast, I think is sort
of a Hail Mary or a last ditch effort and
hoping that someone out there will listen to this podcast
and provide us with new information.
Speaker 1 (01:46):
My name is Stacy Larson. I've been locked up over
thirty four years. I'm doing a life sentence for a.
Speaker 3 (01:51):
Crime that i did not do from love of for good.
This is wrongful conviction with Maggie Freeling today Stacy Larson.
Stacy Larson was born June twenty sixth, nineteen sixty nine,
in Mitchell, South Dakota.
Speaker 1 (02:07):
Southcot was mostly a farm land. We lived on a
farm when them were just little kids. They had like
ten ancents of land. We had horses, kickens, geese, stuff
like that. I grew an old little garden stuff corn,
you know, pumpkins, watermelon, tomatoes, parrots, rue barb. Mom did
all that.
Speaker 2 (02:26):
Did you like that life?
Speaker 1 (02:29):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (02:32):
Besides tending to their farm, Stacy's mom worked as a
waitress and bartender, and Stacy's dad was an auto mechanic.
Speaker 1 (02:39):
Mom dad worked a lot. They're always working.
Speaker 3 (02:42):
So Stacy hung out with his siblings, three older brothers.
Speaker 1 (02:46):
I'm the baby of the family. That kind of sucks.
Speaker 2 (02:49):
What was that like?
Speaker 1 (02:50):
You kind of got always picked on. You always got
told to do this and do that because you know,
mom and dad tell them. You guys had certain chores
to do and mom danning around the house. So my
brothers had me do their chores and stuff. It was
a halfful for my mom. I know that for sure.
We're kind of like kind of wild kids a little bit.
You know, I'm doing this, doing that, Mommy, don't be
(03:11):
doing that. Don't be doing that.
Speaker 2 (03:13):
Well, like, what what would you guys do that? What
would you guys do? That would kiss her off?
Speaker 1 (03:18):
Oh? We like go outside and run around, get dirty,
come in and stuff like that. Be wrestling around in
the house, horse playing and stuff. They like, don't be
doing that in the house. Do it outside.
Speaker 3 (03:28):
Stacy remembers spending a lot of time outdoors.
Speaker 1 (03:32):
We lived by the Mitchell Lake, so we got to
go to the lake and go swim in and stuff
like that. Let me go to Rapid City. My mom
and dad had friends out there. They live out in
the hills. They had a motor home, a boat. So
we used to go fishing and moving, swimming all the stuff, camping,
like for a week out there in Rapid City.
Speaker 4 (03:48):
So I'm looking at a map Stacy, and kind of
near where you grew up, there's a place called the
Corn Palace.
Speaker 2 (03:55):
Have you been to the Corn Palace?
Speaker 1 (03:58):
Yeah? I used to work there.
Speaker 3 (04:04):
That's Menteal, South Dakota and Stacy loved it. But as
he got older he started to act out.
Speaker 1 (04:12):
That's kind of like the little shit. I didn't really
like pay attention to my parents that much, you know,
just kind of did what I wanted to do.
Speaker 3 (04:19):
Stacy dropped out of school in tenth grade.
Speaker 1 (04:22):
I kind of struggled in school. I couldn't like pay
attention too well. I couldn't sit stale too well. I
was I had like you know, I was always like
HDD whatever I was always had to be moving, had
to be doing something. I just had a hard time
in school.
Speaker 2 (04:39):
You know, you did some time in juvenile detention. What
were you getting in trouble for?
Speaker 1 (04:44):
I agree? And I did some couple of high speed chases.
Speaker 4 (04:49):
High speed chases in a car, yeah, with who the
police or like drag racing?
Speaker 1 (04:54):
Yep, police?
Speaker 2 (04:56):
Did you do anything like violent.
Speaker 1 (05:00):
No, I got no no violence on my record or nothing.
I ain't even in prison. I had no violence at all.
Speaker 3 (05:06):
After he dropped out of school, Stacey started working.
Speaker 1 (05:10):
Graham Goodyear, where my dad worked. He was assistant manager there.
Speaker 2 (05:14):
And how did you see your life going?
Speaker 5 (05:16):
Like?
Speaker 2 (05:16):
What did you want to do?
Speaker 1 (05:18):
I was hoping it was going to go up. I
met this girl, her name is Monica.
Speaker 3 (05:28):
At eighteen, Stacey met Monica through a friend and they
fell hard in the way kids in Mitchell do oh.
Speaker 1 (05:36):
Me and Monica had had used to go to the
park a lot on the weekends and stuff. Hang, I'll
go on the swings and steut slide later and they're like,
with the blanket out, maybe eat some snacks and stuff.
Speaker 3 (05:49):
Stacy says Monica was a.
Speaker 1 (05:51):
Catch fivey long black hair, good.
Speaker 2 (05:56):
Looking and what do you think she liked about you?
Speaker 1 (05:59):
She said, I was good looking. Hot.
Speaker 2 (06:02):
Do you think you're hot?
Speaker 1 (06:05):
Yeah? Getting older now, kind of fading away a little bit, but.
Speaker 2 (06:09):
Back then you were a looker. Huh.
Speaker 1 (06:11):
Yeah. I had long hair. I have my hair combed
to the side, always to the bag, but he laid
it down. My bangs were like blowing my nose.
Speaker 3 (06:21):
But Stacy says what Monica especially liked.
Speaker 1 (06:24):
She knows I was a good father. She knows that.
Speaker 3 (06:27):
Monica had a newborn baby when Stacy met her, So I.
Speaker 1 (06:31):
Took fold responsible for her daughter, the razor, the bather,
to take care of her feet and all that stuff.
Speaker 3 (06:37):
Her name was Heaven, and Stacey loved her like his own.
And he says he adored his life with Monica.
Speaker 2 (06:46):
So you were planning to kind of have a life
with her.
Speaker 1 (06:49):
Yep, that was the plan.
Speaker 2 (06:51):
Did you like being a dad?
Speaker 1 (06:53):
Yeah? I enjoyed it. I think it was the best
thing in the world. That straightened julyfe out like getting
in in trouble. It's all in the past. You have
responsibilities now.
Speaker 2 (07:06):
Did you start to change your life around when you now?
Speaker 1 (07:10):
It's kids? Full or found skill? The kids are before anything.
They always put your kids first. Kids always priority.
Speaker 3 (07:20):
And soon Stacy had a kid of his own. Sunny
was born in the spring of nineteen ninety, but Stacy
wouldn't get to raise him.
Speaker 1 (07:31):
It was like two months old when I got arrested.
Speaker 3 (07:43):
On May twelfth, nineteen ninety. Stacy was out with his
buddy Elmer Pickner and their friend Louis medicine horn. He
was Monica's uncle.
Speaker 1 (07:51):
We're just kind of looked at for some weeds, you know,
to get high and stuff because I always got high.
That was one of my things. But I know I
shouldn't have been doing that.
Speaker 3 (07:58):
But they decided I did to go to Sioux Falls,
about an hour away, where they knew they could get some.
On their way there, at around seven pm, they stopped
at a convenience store in Mitchell called Food and Fuel.
They got gas and beer, and Stacy knew the clerk,
so they shot the shit.
Speaker 1 (08:14):
That's home. We'd be back before he closed, and they
closed at midnight and got in my car and then
we had to see Falls.
Speaker 3 (08:21):
Once they got to Sue Falls, Stacey says he dropped
Uncle Louis at a bar to see if he can
find any weed.
Speaker 1 (08:27):
Me and Alman with this seven eleven got some eat
in between.
Speaker 3 (08:31):
Eventually they struck out and headed back to Mitchell. They
stopped at the Food and Fuel again, got another case
of beer, and filled up the car with gas.
Speaker 1 (08:40):
I dropped Uncle Louis off and we went to my
mom and dad's house. My mom my ex sister in.
While we're at the counter in the kitchen. That was
about twelve to twelve fifteenth, so my mom dad got
a clock in the kitchen and dining room. When you
walk in through the back door, you can see it.
They're sitting right there.
Speaker 3 (08:56):
We talked to him for a little while and that
was the night on a full and a bummer. A
few days later, Stacey and Elmer went to the police station.
Elmer had lost his wallet, so.
Speaker 1 (09:07):
We're looking for We couldn't find it, so we went
to the police station to report it missing. That's when
it all started. Well, they took me in Elma upstairs
and split us up in different rooms and started asking
the questions like what we did Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday,
(09:28):
held that time we miss the peace station? Where we were,
what time he got up so, what time we went
to bed? Whose house were at? Stuff like that.
Speaker 3 (09:39):
Stacy says he had no idea what was going on.
Eventually the detective left the room. He also left his
documents on the table.
Speaker 1 (09:48):
So I started like looking at it and they said
something like about us drive by shooting or something. Then said,
that's how I knew what it was because I remember
people talking about because it was in the paper and stuff.
Speaker 3 (10:00):
The Knight Stacy had been in Sue Falls looking for weed.
There'd been a murder.
Speaker 5 (10:07):
Ronald Hilgenberg was driving his car in the right lane.
His wife was in the passenger seat. A vehicle comes
up next to him and shoots him once in the head.
Speaker 3 (10:18):
This is Anna McGinn's staff attorney at the Great North
Innocence Project.
Speaker 5 (10:21):
The victim's wife testified that she didn't get a good
look at the shooter's car when it passed, but she
had a slight feeling that something light was going by,
so you know, maybe a light colored car. His wife
recounted that the crime must have occurred around eleven forty
two or eleven forty three pm because she remembers looking
(10:44):
at the clock at eleven forty and she estimated that
about two to three minutes had elapsed when the shooting occurred.
Speaker 6 (10:51):
And that's to be clear. A person was driving down
the street.
Speaker 4 (10:55):
This was all while driving and shot at another car
that was also in motion.
Speaker 5 (11:00):
That's correct. So they were driving west on I ninety,
about twenty miles west of Sioux Falls, South Dakota.
Speaker 3 (11:08):
That same night, there was also a house burglary and
a house vandalism.
Speaker 5 (11:12):
The bar residence in Hartford, South Dakota was burglarized. A
Winchester twenty gage shotgun and twenty gage shells were taken.
The Curtain Home, a neighboring home of the bar residence,
was vandalized. Someone shot through one of the windows in
the home.
Speaker 3 (11:29):
Ballistics would end up determining that the same gun was
used at both homes. Police also removed pellets from the
victim's body in the drive by killing, and police said
they were similar to the ones found in the other
two crime scenes.
Speaker 5 (11:44):
And then this other woman who's just driving by her
car gets shot at. No one's injured, but someone shoots
through a window in her car.
Speaker 3 (11:53):
The woman driving that car was Tanya Issuel, and she
winds up telling police that she got a good look
at the car.
Speaker 5 (12:01):
She described the shooter's car as an older model four
door car, light green with a white vinyl.
Speaker 3 (12:07):
Top, although passengers in the car with Tanya described the
car differently.
Speaker 5 (12:13):
Police were asking for information about these crimes and provided
a description of the car, and they then received an
anonymous tip from someone concerned that Stacy's car matched the
one identified by the passerbys. So that's how he's ultimately
put on the radar of.
Speaker 3 (12:33):
The police, and that's when Stacy walked into the police
station looking for Elmer's wallet. Stacy was held for questioning,
but was ultimately released, though it wasn't long before the
police brought him back. And this time they meant business.
Speaker 1 (12:49):
They're saying, we're lying. We ain't tell them the truth.
You guys did it? You just bought brand new cars
on your car. The car trucks up the scene were
fresh like Brandy tire. Oh you got to beb hole
in your tail, like your car fifty description. We got
eyewinness that saw you do it and all this stuff.
(13:10):
I was like, what in no way?
Speaker 3 (13:12):
Tanya also identified Stacy in a lineup. Police were convinced
they had their men.
Speaker 5 (13:23):
So Stacy was held in the police station for ten hours,
during which time he asked for an attorney several times,
and he never got one. He was never mirandized or
given his Miranda warnings.
Speaker 1 (13:36):
They questioned us, question us and questions and the man
light detector. We went to the PlayStation about three thirty
that afternoon, I think it was like ten ten thirty
when they gave us a light detector and they said
we're a deception or whatever. Imagine after so many hours
being questioned, I was frustrated, I was scared. I was confused.
Speaker 5 (13:59):
They brought in his old friend and infant son in
the middle of the night and told him that he
should kiss his baby goodbye since he'd never see him again.
They told him that his dad was in the lobby
and looked very sick. He was sweaty and pale, like
he might have a heart attack, which was alive. So
they're basically saying, look, your dad's here, he's going to
(14:19):
have another heart attack, and you can go if you
just make a confession.
Speaker 1 (14:24):
Sam to hit his hand on the accounter, real hard stuff.
I'll just admit to what you did to talk about it,
like the death penalty and stuff.
Speaker 2 (14:34):
So what did you think?
Speaker 4 (14:35):
Did you think, like, Okay, if I just say what
they're saying, I can go home.
Speaker 1 (14:39):
Yep, that's pretty much it. Tell us what happened? What
did you guys did and be dealt with? Tells minors Fanning, Did.
Speaker 4 (14:48):
You have an understanding that when you confess to a
crime that they would arrest you then or were they
telling you like, you'll go home.
Speaker 1 (14:56):
They wouldn't say exactly, I was going to ge arrested
or go home, but tell us what happened. The interview
was done, you know, no more question for through. That
was my understanding.
Speaker 5 (15:09):
And so after ten hours of torment, Stacy wrote out
a confession that he was involved in this crime.
Speaker 3 (15:16):
Stacy says the detectives told him what to say, and
when he was done, he never went home. Stacy was
indicted for the murder of seventy six year old Ronald Hildenberg.
Speaker 2 (15:26):
What were you thinking when you went to trial.
Speaker 1 (15:30):
I'll go at home. I didn't do it.
Speaker 4 (15:33):
They don't have nothing, So you believed you believed the
system would get it right.
Speaker 3 (15:38):
They would figure out, oh he didn't do this. Elmer Pickner,
Louis Medicine, Horn, and Stacey were all charged and Stacy
was the first to go to trial.
Speaker 1 (15:49):
He offered me a deal to test flag against him.
I said no, I ain't taking an old deal.
Speaker 3 (15:54):
Stacy insisted on his innocence, so he went to trial
November third, nineteen ninety. He was twenty years old. McCook
County State's Attorney, Roger Gurlac, tried the case.
Speaker 5 (16:06):
So the state's theory of the case was that these
three men were so frustrated at their failure to secure
marijuana that they went on a crime spree that ultimately
culminated in the Hilgenberg murder. The state's ballistic expert oppined
that the pellets and the wads retrieved from the scene
were likely fired from the same gun that was fired
(16:28):
at the bar residence, the Curtain residence, and also matched
evidence found at the Hilgenberg murder and the pellets taken
from the.
Speaker 3 (16:37):
Victim's body, But the state didn't have much else to
work with. None of the unidentified fingerprints, footprints, or tire
prints matched Stacy or his friends, and his confession never
made it to trial.
Speaker 5 (16:53):
His confession was actually thrown out and found to be
inadmissible because of all of these horribly coercid of tactics
by the police. The judge would not allow it in.
But apparently, while he was alone in the police officer's car, Stacy,
according to this officer, again alleged to have made some
(17:17):
sort of incriminating admission to him when the two were
alone in the vehicle, and that ultimately was admitted at trial.
Speaker 3 (17:25):
The officer was allowed to testify as to what he
alleged he heard Stacy say in the car.
Speaker 5 (17:30):
These admissions, in addition to the word of two jailhouse nitches,
made up some of the only evidence against Stacy at
the time of the crime.
Speaker 3 (17:40):
In fact, the defense was turning up evidence to the contrary.
Speaker 5 (17:44):
So this case is in some ways complicated the timing
of the events, but in other ways it's very simple
because Stacy had an ironclad alibi.
Speaker 3 (18:00):
Stacy, uncle Louis, and Elmer had gone to Sue Falls
to get weed at the Frontier Bar.
Speaker 5 (18:05):
An acquaintance testified to seeing the group leave around eleven
ten pm. Then all three men left Sue Falls and
returned westbound to Mitchell. At eleven forty seven pm, Stacy
and his two friends purchased gas and beer at a
Food and Fuel in Mitchell, South Dakota, and this was
corroborated by the stores tape and employee testimony.
Speaker 3 (18:29):
Sales tape not videotape, a receipt from the Food and
Fuel marked twelve two am.
Speaker 5 (18:36):
The problem with this is that the distance between the
site of the Hilgenberg murder and the Food and Fuel
is forty three point two miles, and the Hilgenberg murder
occurred around eleven forty two pm, Stacy would have had
to cover that forty three miles in about twenty minutes,
(18:59):
and that be an average of one hundred and thirty
five miles per hour.
Speaker 3 (19:03):
But Stacy's defense found out that the clock on the
time stamped for seat was ten minutes fast.
Speaker 5 (19:09):
And given the reality that the clock was ten minutes
fast he purchased the store items, actually at eleven fifty two,
he probably would have had to drive about two hundred
and sixty to even three hundred and seventy miles per hour,
which was obviously impossible.
Speaker 6 (19:28):
How did the state get around this at trial?
Speaker 5 (19:32):
So the state was allowed to introduce prior bad acts
that Stacy had a history of speeding.
Speaker 3 (19:40):
Remember Stacy liked racing cops.
Speaker 5 (19:43):
So they said, you can sort of extrapolate from the
times and say, okay, well, let's say the shooting actually
ocurred at eleven forty pm. You know, no one knows
exactly the time that the shooting occurred, and so you know,
giving it a little bit of leeway there, and let's
say he actually got there at twelve oh two am.
(20:05):
The clock wasn't actually fast, then one hundred and thirty
miles per hour well, Stacy has all this history of speeding,
so you know, maybe it makes sense that he did
speed that fast, which again, you know, an average of
one hundred and thirty five miles per hour. I guess
that's technically possible, but strikes me as exceedingly unlikely, unlike
(20:29):
what we believe the real timeline was, which is going
about three hundred miles per hour. I mean, that's physically impossible.
You know, this is an ironclad alibi. The problem is
all of this was known at the time of trial,
and he was still convicted.
Speaker 3 (20:47):
After about eight hours deliberating, the jury found Stacy Larsen
guilty of second degree murder just after midnight on November
twenty first, nineteen ninety He was sentenced to life in
prison without the possibility of parole. Roger Gerlac told the
press he would use the same approach and witnesses for
the other two trials, but he ended up dropping the
(21:10):
charges against Uncle Louis, and Elmer was acquitted at trial
a few months later in nineteen ninety one.
Speaker 5 (21:16):
Stacy's the only one that's sitting in prison for this crime.
The alibi was enough for a one jury and not
enough for his unfortunately.
Speaker 3 (21:32):
Stacy says after he was convicted, he was devastated.
Speaker 1 (21:37):
Devastated. I didn't know what to do. I didn't know
what to do because I was just a young kid.
Speaker 3 (21:45):
Twenty years old, his whole life ahead him, and now
it was gone. So, Monica, when you went to prison,
how did that relationship end? Did you guys stay together?
Speaker 1 (21:57):
We did for a while. I just kind of told it,
you gotta go leave your life. I gotta do what
I gotta do to get out of here. I didn't
want to all want to tire downar or nothing.
Speaker 3 (22:06):
It was a very lonely start to prison for Stacy.
No Monica and Stacy says his family wasn't fully behind him.
Speaker 1 (22:14):
They pretty much convinced my dad I did it.
Speaker 2 (22:16):
Wow, So did your dad think you did it?
Speaker 1 (22:20):
Yeah? He down in his heart, I don't think he did,
but because he knows the clice and stuff, so there's
like a I don't want to say, a friendship. But
he didn't think that would lie to him. But if
they got evidence that match me, and he's probably gonna
believe it.
Speaker 3 (22:37):
Stacey figured if he was going to get through this,
he had to be there for himself.
Speaker 1 (22:41):
I had a figure something. Now, I'm not gonna let
him get away with this.
Speaker 3 (22:47):
So he started working on proving his innocence.
Speaker 1 (22:50):
I started talking to people and kind of going to
the law library reading those stuff and watched that. And
I started watching programs about like physical evidence and trials
and stuff. Try to learn the process.
Speaker 3 (23:04):
He wrote letter after a letter.
Speaker 1 (23:06):
I wrote, like other news stations like Washington Times.
Speaker 3 (23:10):
To all kinds of people.
Speaker 1 (23:12):
President Baker Obama wrote, Barry Sanders, the Gulvin Hellolan, Midwest
Innocent Projects, which companions my win and knew the White House,
all kinds of people, whoever I can write, try to
help me.
Speaker 3 (23:30):
Finally, in two thousand and four, the Great North Innocence
Project accepted Stacy's case.
Speaker 5 (23:35):
This alibi, I think, screams of Stacy's innocence. Now. It
was so convincing that Stacy's Code defendants were either acquitted
at their own trials and then the state subsequently dismissed
all charges against his other Code offended.
Speaker 3 (23:53):
But Annas has the problem with the alibi for post
conviction work is that it was already presented at trial.
In order to get Stacy back in court, he needs
new evidence that has not been litigated so shortly after
they got the case. In two thousand and five, with
advances in technology, the Innocence Project requested DNA testing on
(24:14):
the evidence, but they found out it was gone.
Speaker 5 (24:18):
All of the evidence that was in the possession of
the state's attorney's office, some of it, at certain points
we thought was destroyed, but recently we've determined that that
it was not actually destroyed, and so we are going
through testing relevant pieces of evidence as we come by them,
(24:41):
but so far that has not yielded any positive leads.
You know, we've been trying to find fingerprints, we've been
trying to get touch DNA, all sorts of evidence from
all of these crimes, and this evidence has not given
us any indication that Stacy is guilty. But it also
(25:02):
hasn't provided us with any new information that we don't
already know, and so where to go next is not
at all obvious. Now. I think the fact that we've
been working on his case for twenty years should speak
to the fact that we have not found anything that
suggests that Stacy committed this crime.
Speaker 3 (25:28):
Anna says, if they do find new evidence of innocence,
Stacy can submit emotion for a new trial.
Speaker 5 (25:35):
It's horrible because we know that Stacy is innocent. I
believe it's physically impossible for him to have committed this crime,
and yet lawyers keep hitting these dead ends. It's extremely demoralizing.
Speaker 3 (25:56):
Although the innocence project hit a wall, Stacy's life is
on up in other unexpected ways.
Speaker 2 (26:04):
I was going to ask about your cousin, Karen, so
tell me about her. Were you guys close growing up?
Speaker 1 (26:11):
Well, this is a crazy thing. We just met like
eight years ago. Nobody knew she existed.
Speaker 7 (26:19):
Stacy's mother actually knew about me, and she was eleven
months younger than my dad, so they were very close.
Speaker 3 (26:28):
This is Karen Wheeldrier.
Speaker 7 (26:30):
I am Stacy's cousin, and what.
Speaker 3 (26:32):
Stacy means by no one knew about her is that
Karen didn't know who her biological dad was.
Speaker 7 (26:40):
I found out at the age of fifty six that
the dad that raised me was not my biological father.
I always felt something was different growing up, and I
finally asked my aunt who confirmed and she told me
my biological dad's name.
Speaker 3 (26:59):
So Karen set out to find him.
Speaker 7 (27:02):
That was in twenty sixteen, August of twenty sixteen. So
since then, I've been on quite a journey learning as
much about my biological dad and his family, and it's
been very good, a very good turnout.
Speaker 6 (27:19):
Did you expect your life was now going to be
advocating for someone in prison?
Speaker 7 (27:25):
No, I certainly did not. That was probably the farthest
thing from my mind.
Speaker 3 (27:29):
Karen learned that her dad had a sister, and that
sister had a son, her biological cousin.
Speaker 7 (27:36):
I learned about Stacy in twenty seventeen, and I actually
got to meet him. In April of twenty seventeen.
Speaker 3 (27:45):
Karen went to visit Stacy in prison along with her uncle,
Stacy's father.
Speaker 6 (27:50):
What were you told anything before you met Stacy? I mean,
you're going to visit this man in prison that you
don't know?
Speaker 3 (27:57):
What were you told about him?
Speaker 5 (27:59):
So?
Speaker 7 (28:00):
I was told the circumstances of the case, as far
as what his charges were and why he was in prison.
Speaker 3 (28:09):
Karen was taken by Stacy.
Speaker 7 (28:12):
I love his laugh. He has a soft laugh that
is very warming. He's very kind, very kind man. I
cannot speak of the young man he was at the
time that all of this happened for him, But the
(28:35):
Stacy that I know this is not him at all.
Speaker 3 (28:40):
Karen wondered, could this sweet man in front of her
have committed this crime?
Speaker 7 (28:46):
It was just very hard to understand how this came about.
I have served on jury duty a couple of times,
not at the federal level, but at our county level.
I have done that, and if there's one thing that
(29:07):
I learned while doing that, it is that our judicial
system is broken.
Speaker 3 (29:13):
So she got the court turn scripts from Stacy's trial
and started reading.
Speaker 7 (29:18):
And by reading those in the beginning, it's like, well, yeah,
I mean he had to have done it if you
read this, and that's how the case was presented.
Speaker 3 (29:30):
But then Stacy started calling.
Speaker 7 (29:33):
Her, and he started sending me other information, and so
I started digging deeper and deeper. And I've made a
lot of phone calls, a lot of phone calls, a
lot of emails.
Speaker 6 (29:44):
So what made you want to keep looking? I mean
you could have just been like, I don't know this person.
I don't need to get involved with someone in prison.
Speaker 7 (29:53):
You know, that's a tough one. Just something inside that
was telling me he definitely is an innocent person.
Speaker 3 (30:03):
And now Karen says she knows it.
Speaker 7 (30:06):
This makes absolutely no sense. I mean, it made absolutely
no sense, and the more I read into all these
reports and looked at the pictures and read the autopsy,
the more angry I became. And I consider it a
righteous anger because it was very evident that he was
(30:29):
set up.
Speaker 2 (30:31):
That's so interesting. So this person who you're related to
but doesn't really know you at all now is one
of your advocates.
Speaker 1 (30:41):
Yep, by my biggest advocate I have.
Speaker 2 (30:44):
What do you think about that?
Speaker 1 (30:46):
You got to have that support you need it. It's
hard to do it on your own.
Speaker 3 (30:51):
Karen says. Once the Innocence Project got involved in Stacy's case,
the rest of his family came around.
Speaker 7 (30:57):
He has the support of his family. From those that
I have met, he does have that. It's just nobody
knows how to go about this, and that's been the
hard part. He you know, That's that's what people don't know.
When I met his mother, my aunt, for the first time,
(31:18):
she was so hopeful and she said, Stacy says, the
Innocence Project is working so hard to get his case reversed.
She said, I just I can't give up because Stacy
is so hopeful. I have to keep my hope going.
Speaker 3 (31:34):
But it's been over three decades and Stacy is still
in prison, missing out on the life he loved.
Speaker 2 (31:41):
Do you feel like it was hard to be a
dad in prison.
Speaker 1 (31:46):
Yeah, because you can't be the or them physically all
I not the way once they fall and got hurt,
or something happened at school, or you know, you can't
watch him forward or whatever, swimming ride their first fight.
It's hard on a kid because I have visitations with
(32:09):
them when they're little and a stuff, so they kind
of grew up and with me through the prisons system.
Speaker 3 (32:16):
Today Stacey is a grandfather.
Speaker 1 (32:19):
Makes them up during like activities like a fun day
when you get to interact with your kids, your grandkids
do things with them with scavengers, hunting, do some color
in stuff like that.
Speaker 4 (32:30):
Are you still in touch with Monica or did that
end friendly?
Speaker 1 (32:35):
We have contact here and there might be six months
down the role might hear from her or somebody. There's
always been contact. They all know what's going on. Every
legal letter I get from people, I sent them copies,
so they know what's going on, so they're not out
of the loop.
Speaker 2 (32:51):
Do they all support your innocence?
Speaker 1 (32:55):
Yep? I can't. What do I get out?
Speaker 2 (32:57):
What do you guys talk about? What's that going to
look like.
Speaker 1 (33:01):
I tell them, first step, you got to get out first,
and we're worry about that. You want to get too
far ahead. My priority is getting off first. I don't
even worry about what I'm gonna do out there or anything.
Don't want to get like too emotional. You don't want
to get your high hopes up and stuff like that.
(33:21):
Focus on one thing. I take one day at a time.
I'm not one of those guys. I could do a
thousand things. I'd just take one day at a time.
My case is far already.
Speaker 3 (33:44):
And it says the next steps aren't immediately obvious.
Speaker 5 (33:48):
We are just hoping that with this podcast, perhaps someone
listening will recall this crime and have information that can
help Stacy. Basically to provide us with this new evidence,
right because you know, we've done the DNA testing, We've
done the fingerprint analysis, and we are not going to
(34:08):
give up on Stacy because we believe in his innocence.
You know, this is an ironclad alibi.
Speaker 3 (34:14):
Anna says there are a few avenues that are looking
for information on She says that Stacy's attorney at trial
should have been allowed to introduce a third party perpetrator defense.
Speaker 5 (34:26):
Saying it wasn't me, it was someone else. Stacy wanted
to offer evidence that at least one and possibly two
other shootings occurred that same evening. So so there was
another shooting at a vehicle traveling eastbound on I ninety
towards Sioux Falls at around ten fifteen PM. Marks were
(34:50):
found on this vehicle that could have been caused by
a shotgun. And then again at twelve thirty am, a
witness allegedly heard a shotgun blast from a van outside
of Hartford, South Dakota. That's where those two houses were
burglarized and vandalized. So no physical evidence was ever really
(35:11):
found at the scene of either of those crimes. But
it's significant these drive by shootings were not happening a
lot in Sioux Falls, South Dakota at the time, and
so the fact that there were potentially two other shootings
and one likely caused by a shotgun shot, that's significant
(35:31):
evidence that I believe should have been introduced at his trial,
and two justices on the South Dakota Supreme Court agree
that that should have been introduced.
Speaker 6 (35:39):
And so have you guys tried to track down who
that might have been.
Speaker 5 (35:43):
We have, and we have not been successful yet in
figuring out the identity of that person with certainty such
that were able to present.
Speaker 1 (35:53):
It in court.
Speaker 3 (35:54):
But Anna is not giving up.
Speaker 5 (35:57):
His community, his family. They've all missed him, We've all
missed out on everything he could have contributed to society,
as we all know, wrongful convictions of fact. Not just
the individual that's been incarcerated, but their family as well.
You know, his son was an infant when he was arrested,
and so he grew up without a father. It's really
(36:19):
hard to for me, because it's hard for me as
his lawyer, because I want to give him the best
representation that he deserves. And his case has just been
sitting there for a while because there's nothing new that
we can think of, and so if anyone knows anything,
(36:41):
they should please contact us at the Great North Innocence Project.
Speaker 3 (36:46):
Stacy's cousin Karen, agrees.
Speaker 7 (36:48):
He needs justice and I, as a resident on this state,
deserve to have the correct person who committed the murder
behind mars, and so does everybody else he is.
Speaker 1 (37:02):
He.
Speaker 7 (37:03):
I don't know how he has kept so positive. He
has come up against roadblock and roadblock and roadblock continuously,
and he he still has such a positive attitude about
it and has never been given up.
Speaker 3 (37:24):
Although he has spent more of his life in prison
than out, Stacy says he feels more hopeful than ever.
Speaker 4 (37:32):
I mean, I've been thinking about you all these years,
so I'm just really glad that you're in a place of.
Speaker 2 (37:38):
Hope right now.
Speaker 1 (37:39):
Yep. Oh yeah, really hope, big hope. It's like hope
and dreams.
Speaker 2 (37:46):
Yeah, do you feel like this might be it?
Speaker 1 (37:50):
I'm hoping one step closer. I'm hoping. Tell me to
know something. Some making help. You can contact the Innocent Codge.
They can contact you, they can contact me. I hope
a lot of people get involved or asking questions why
this guy's in prisony. You should be there. I just
(38:11):
want the whole world no, I did not do this crime.
I'm interesting.
Speaker 3 (38:21):
Thank you for listening to Wrongful Conviction with Maggie Freeling.
Please support your local innocence organizations and go to the
links on our website to see how you can help
Stacy out. If you live in South Dakota, you can
reach out to your elected officials. This episode was written
by me Maggie Freeling, with story editing and sound designed
by Senior producer Rebecca Ibarra. Our producer is Kathleen Fink.
(38:42):
Our mixer is Josh Allen, with research by Alison Levy.
An additional production help by Jeff Cleiburn. Executive producers are
Jason Flamm, Jeff Kempler, and Kevin Wortis. The music is
by three time OSCAR nominated composer Jay Ralph.
Speaker 2 (38:56):
Make sure to.
Speaker 3 (38:57):
Follow us on all social media platforms at Lava for
Good and at Wrongful Conviction. You can also follow me
on all platforms at Maggie Freeling. Wrongful Conviction with Maggie
Freeling is a production of Lava for Good Podcasts in
association with Signal Company Number One. We've worked hard to
ensure that all facts reported in this show are accurate.
The views and opinions expressed by the individuals featured in
(39:19):
this show are their own and do not necessarily reflect
those of Lava for Good.
Thank you for using GTL.
Speaker 2 (00:02):
Stacy. Yes, it's finally happening.
Speaker 1 (00:07):
Yes it is.
Speaker 3 (00:13):
Stacey Laarson and I have been speaking for years. I've
been trying to get him on my podcast. He wrote
me a letter back in twenty twenty.
Speaker 1 (00:21):
Yeah, like four or five years ago.
Speaker 3 (00:23):
It was one of many.
Speaker 4 (00:25):
How many letters do you think you've written over the years?
Speaker 1 (00:29):
Oh geez, oh geez, well over one hundred. E's probably
a couple hundred.
Speaker 2 (00:41):
Were you just writing anyone and everyone.
Speaker 1 (00:44):
I've heard about podcasts they get out there. I mean
they're all over the world. So I've seen stuff like
that on TV, like TikTok and stuff like that. People
got podcasts on things and stuff. Hey, I got nothing
to lose by trying. I got more to gain if
I get in. I'll write it. Anybody try anybody. You
just don't know.
Speaker 3 (01:06):
Stacy is even on prison pen pal.
Speaker 1 (01:08):
Sites hoping some of that might read is Hey, I
almost see what this kids above. Maybe I could help
them and stuff like that.
Speaker 3 (01:16):
Stacy's doggedness to prove his innocence paid off twenty years
ago when the Great North Innocence Project took on his case,
but over the decades, his attorneys have run out of
avenues to pursue.
Speaker 5 (01:28):
We have believed for a very long time that Stacy
is innocent, and so this podcast, I think is sort
of a Hail Mary or a last ditch effort and
hoping that someone out there will listen to this podcast
and provide us with new information.
Speaker 1 (01:46):
My name is Stacy Larson. I've been locked up over
thirty four years. I'm doing a life sentence for a.
Speaker 3 (01:51):
Crime that i did not do from love of for good.
This is wrongful conviction with Maggie Freeling today Stacy Larson.
Stacy Larson was born June twenty sixth, nineteen sixty nine,
in Mitchell, South Dakota.
Speaker 1 (02:07):
Southcot was mostly a farm land. We lived on a
farm when them were just little kids. They had like
ten ancents of land. We had horses, kickens, geese, stuff
like that. I grew an old little garden stuff corn,
you know, pumpkins, watermelon, tomatoes, parrots, rue barb. Mom did
all that.
Speaker 2 (02:26):
Did you like that life?
Speaker 1 (02:29):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (02:32):
Besides tending to their farm, Stacy's mom worked as a
waitress and bartender, and Stacy's dad was an auto mechanic.
Speaker 1 (02:39):
Mom dad worked a lot. They're always working.
Speaker 3 (02:42):
So Stacy hung out with his siblings, three older brothers.
Speaker 1 (02:46):
I'm the baby of the family. That kind of sucks.
Speaker 2 (02:49):
What was that like?
Speaker 1 (02:50):
You kind of got always picked on. You always got
told to do this and do that because you know,
mom and dad tell them. You guys had certain chores
to do and mom danning around the house. So my
brothers had me do their chores and stuff. It was
a halfful for my mom. I know that for sure.
We're kind of like kind of wild kids a little bit.
You know, I'm doing this, doing that, Mommy, don't be
(03:11):
doing that. Don't be doing that.
Speaker 2 (03:13):
Well, like, what what would you guys do that? What
would you guys do? That would kiss her off?
Speaker 1 (03:18):
Oh? We like go outside and run around, get dirty,
come in and stuff like that. Be wrestling around in
the house, horse playing and stuff. They like, don't be
doing that in the house. Do it outside.
Speaker 3 (03:28):
Stacy remembers spending a lot of time outdoors.
Speaker 1 (03:32):
We lived by the Mitchell Lake, so we got to
go to the lake and go swim in and stuff
like that. Let me go to Rapid City. My mom
and dad had friends out there. They live out in
the hills. They had a motor home, a boat. So
we used to go fishing and moving, swimming all the stuff, camping,
like for a week out there in Rapid City.
Speaker 4 (03:48):
So I'm looking at a map Stacy, and kind of
near where you grew up, there's a place called the
Corn Palace.
Speaker 2 (03:55):
Have you been to the Corn Palace?
Speaker 1 (03:58):
Yeah? I used to work there.
Speaker 3 (04:04):
That's Menteal, South Dakota and Stacy loved it. But as
he got older he started to act out.
Speaker 1 (04:12):
That's kind of like the little shit. I didn't really
like pay attention to my parents that much, you know,
just kind of did what I wanted to do.
Speaker 3 (04:19):
Stacy dropped out of school in tenth grade.
Speaker 1 (04:22):
I kind of struggled in school. I couldn't like pay
attention too well. I couldn't sit stale too well. I
was I had like you know, I was always like
HDD whatever I was always had to be moving, had
to be doing something. I just had a hard time
in school.
Speaker 2 (04:39):
You know, you did some time in juvenile detention. What
were you getting in trouble for?
Speaker 1 (04:44):
I agree? And I did some couple of high speed chases.
Speaker 4 (04:49):
High speed chases in a car, yeah, with who the
police or like drag racing?
Speaker 1 (04:54):
Yep, police?
Speaker 2 (04:56):
Did you do anything like violent.
Speaker 1 (05:00):
No, I got no no violence on my record or nothing.
I ain't even in prison. I had no violence at all.
Speaker 3 (05:06):
After he dropped out of school, Stacey started working.
Speaker 1 (05:10):
Graham Goodyear, where my dad worked. He was assistant manager there.
Speaker 2 (05:14):
And how did you see your life going?
Speaker 5 (05:16):
Like?
Speaker 2 (05:16):
What did you want to do?
Speaker 1 (05:18):
I was hoping it was going to go up. I
met this girl, her name is Monica.
Speaker 3 (05:28):
At eighteen, Stacey met Monica through a friend and they
fell hard in the way kids in Mitchell do oh.
Speaker 1 (05:36):
Me and Monica had had used to go to the
park a lot on the weekends and stuff. Hang, I'll
go on the swings and steut slide later and they're like,
with the blanket out, maybe eat some snacks and stuff.
Speaker 3 (05:49):
Stacy says Monica was a.
Speaker 1 (05:51):
Catch fivey long black hair, good.
Speaker 2 (05:56):
Looking and what do you think she liked about you?
Speaker 1 (05:59):
She said, I was good looking. Hot.
Speaker 2 (06:02):
Do you think you're hot?
Speaker 1 (06:05):
Yeah? Getting older now, kind of fading away a little bit, but.
Speaker 2 (06:09):
Back then you were a looker. Huh.
Speaker 1 (06:11):
Yeah. I had long hair. I have my hair combed
to the side, always to the bag, but he laid
it down. My bangs were like blowing my nose.
Speaker 3 (06:21):
But Stacy says what Monica especially liked.
Speaker 1 (06:24):
She knows I was a good father. She knows that.
Speaker 3 (06:27):
Monica had a newborn baby when Stacy met her, So I.
Speaker 1 (06:31):
Took fold responsible for her daughter, the razor, the bather,
to take care of her feet and all that stuff.
Speaker 3 (06:37):
Her name was Heaven, and Stacey loved her like his own.
And he says he adored his life with Monica.
Speaker 2 (06:46):
So you were planning to kind of have a life
with her.
Speaker 1 (06:49):
Yep, that was the plan.
Speaker 2 (06:51):
Did you like being a dad?
Speaker 1 (06:53):
Yeah? I enjoyed it. I think it was the best
thing in the world. That straightened julyfe out like getting
in in trouble. It's all in the past. You have
responsibilities now.
Speaker 2 (07:06):
Did you start to change your life around when you now?
Speaker 1 (07:10):
It's kids? Full or found skill? The kids are before anything.
They always put your kids first. Kids always priority.
Speaker 3 (07:20):
And soon Stacy had a kid of his own. Sunny
was born in the spring of nineteen ninety, but Stacy
wouldn't get to raise him.
Speaker 1 (07:31):
It was like two months old when I got arrested.
Speaker 3 (07:43):
On May twelfth, nineteen ninety. Stacy was out with his
buddy Elmer Pickner and their friend Louis medicine horn. He
was Monica's uncle.
Speaker 1 (07:51):
We're just kind of looked at for some weeds, you know,
to get high and stuff because I always got high.
That was one of my things. But I know I
shouldn't have been doing that.
Speaker 3 (07:58):
But they decided I did to go to Sioux Falls,
about an hour away, where they knew they could get some.
On their way there, at around seven pm, they stopped
at a convenience store in Mitchell called Food and Fuel.
They got gas and beer, and Stacy knew the clerk,
so they shot the shit.
Speaker 1 (08:14):
That's home. We'd be back before he closed, and they
closed at midnight and got in my car and then
we had to see Falls.
Speaker 3 (08:21):
Once they got to Sue Falls, Stacey says he dropped
Uncle Louis at a bar to see if he can
find any weed.
Speaker 1 (08:27):
Me and Alman with this seven eleven got some eat
in between.
Speaker 3 (08:31):
Eventually they struck out and headed back to Mitchell. They
stopped at the Food and Fuel again, got another case
of beer, and filled up the car with gas.
Speaker 1 (08:40):
I dropped Uncle Louis off and we went to my
mom and dad's house. My mom my ex sister in.
While we're at the counter in the kitchen. That was
about twelve to twelve fifteenth, so my mom dad got
a clock in the kitchen and dining room. When you
walk in through the back door, you can see it.
They're sitting right there.
Speaker 3 (08:56):
We talked to him for a little while and that
was the night on a full and a bummer. A
few days later, Stacey and Elmer went to the police station.
Elmer had lost his wallet, so.
Speaker 1 (09:07):
We're looking for We couldn't find it, so we went
to the police station to report it missing. That's when
it all started. Well, they took me in Elma upstairs
and split us up in different rooms and started asking
the questions like what we did Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday,
(09:28):
held that time we miss the peace station? Where we were,
what time he got up so, what time we went
to bed? Whose house were at? Stuff like that.
Speaker 3 (09:39):
Stacy says he had no idea what was going on.
Eventually the detective left the room. He also left his
documents on the table.
Speaker 1 (09:48):
So I started like looking at it and they said
something like about us drive by shooting or something. Then said,
that's how I knew what it was because I remember
people talking about because it was in the paper and stuff.
Speaker 3 (10:00):
The Knight Stacy had been in Sue Falls looking for weed.
There'd been a murder.
Speaker 5 (10:07):
Ronald Hilgenberg was driving his car in the right lane.
His wife was in the passenger seat. A vehicle comes
up next to him and shoots him once in the head.
Speaker 3 (10:18):
This is Anna McGinn's staff attorney at the Great North
Innocence Project.
Speaker 5 (10:21):
The victim's wife testified that she didn't get a good
look at the shooter's car when it passed, but she
had a slight feeling that something light was going by,
so you know, maybe a light colored car. His wife
recounted that the crime must have occurred around eleven forty
two or eleven forty three pm because she remembers looking
(10:44):
at the clock at eleven forty and she estimated that
about two to three minutes had elapsed when the shooting occurred.
Speaker 6 (10:51):
And that's to be clear. A person was driving down
the street.
Speaker 4 (10:55):
This was all while driving and shot at another car
that was also in motion.
Speaker 5 (11:00):
That's correct. So they were driving west on I ninety,
about twenty miles west of Sioux Falls, South Dakota.
Speaker 3 (11:08):
That same night, there was also a house burglary and
a house vandalism.
Speaker 5 (11:12):
The bar residence in Hartford, South Dakota was burglarized. A
Winchester twenty gage shotgun and twenty gage shells were taken.
The Curtain Home, a neighboring home of the bar residence,
was vandalized. Someone shot through one of the windows in
the home.
Speaker 3 (11:29):
Ballistics would end up determining that the same gun was
used at both homes. Police also removed pellets from the
victim's body in the drive by killing, and police said
they were similar to the ones found in the other
two crime scenes.
Speaker 5 (11:44):
And then this other woman who's just driving by her
car gets shot at. No one's injured, but someone shoots
through a window in her car.
Speaker 3 (11:53):
The woman driving that car was Tanya Issuel, and she
winds up telling police that she got a good look
at the car.
Speaker 5 (12:01):
She described the shooter's car as an older model four
door car, light green with a white vinyl.
Speaker 3 (12:07):
Top, although passengers in the car with Tanya described the
car differently.
Speaker 5 (12:13):
Police were asking for information about these crimes and provided
a description of the car, and they then received an
anonymous tip from someone concerned that Stacy's car matched the
one identified by the passerbys. So that's how he's ultimately
put on the radar of.
Speaker 3 (12:33):
The police, and that's when Stacy walked into the police
station looking for Elmer's wallet. Stacy was held for questioning,
but was ultimately released, though it wasn't long before the
police brought him back. And this time they meant business.
Speaker 1 (12:49):
They're saying, we're lying. We ain't tell them the truth.
You guys did it? You just bought brand new cars
on your car. The car trucks up the scene were
fresh like Brandy tire. Oh you got to beb hole
in your tail, like your car fifty description. We got
eyewinness that saw you do it and all this stuff.
(13:10):
I was like, what in no way?
Speaker 3 (13:12):
Tanya also identified Stacy in a lineup. Police were convinced
they had their men.
Speaker 5 (13:23):
So Stacy was held in the police station for ten hours,
during which time he asked for an attorney several times,
and he never got one. He was never mirandized or
given his Miranda warnings.
Speaker 1 (13:36):
They questioned us, question us and questions and the man
light detector. We went to the PlayStation about three thirty
that afternoon, I think it was like ten ten thirty
when they gave us a light detector and they said
we're a deception or whatever. Imagine after so many hours
being questioned, I was frustrated, I was scared. I was confused.
Speaker 5 (13:59):
They brought in his old friend and infant son in
the middle of the night and told him that he
should kiss his baby goodbye since he'd never see him again.
They told him that his dad was in the lobby
and looked very sick. He was sweaty and pale, like
he might have a heart attack, which was alive. So
they're basically saying, look, your dad's here, he's going to
(14:19):
have another heart attack, and you can go if you
just make a confession.
Speaker 1 (14:24):
Sam to hit his hand on the accounter, real hard stuff.
I'll just admit to what you did to talk about it,
like the death penalty and stuff.
Speaker 2 (14:34):
So what did you think?
Speaker 4 (14:35):
Did you think, like, Okay, if I just say what
they're saying, I can go home.
Speaker 1 (14:39):
Yep, that's pretty much it. Tell us what happened? What
did you guys did and be dealt with? Tells minors Fanning, Did.
Speaker 4 (14:48):
You have an understanding that when you confess to a
crime that they would arrest you then or were they
telling you like, you'll go home.
Speaker 1 (14:56):
They wouldn't say exactly, I was going to ge arrested
or go home, but tell us what happened. The interview
was done, you know, no more question for through. That
was my understanding.
Speaker 5 (15:09):
And so after ten hours of torment, Stacy wrote out
a confession that he was involved in this crime.
Speaker 3 (15:16):
Stacy says the detectives told him what to say, and
when he was done, he never went home. Stacy was
indicted for the murder of seventy six year old Ronald Hildenberg.
Speaker 2 (15:26):
What were you thinking when you went to trial.
Speaker 1 (15:30):
I'll go at home. I didn't do it.
Speaker 4 (15:33):
They don't have nothing, So you believed you believed the
system would get it right.
Speaker 3 (15:38):
They would figure out, oh he didn't do this. Elmer Pickner,
Louis Medicine, Horn, and Stacey were all charged and Stacy
was the first to go to trial.
Speaker 1 (15:49):
He offered me a deal to test flag against him.
I said no, I ain't taking an old deal.
Speaker 3 (15:54):
Stacy insisted on his innocence, so he went to trial
November third, nineteen ninety. He was twenty years old. McCook
County State's Attorney, Roger Gurlac, tried the case.
Speaker 5 (16:06):
So the state's theory of the case was that these
three men were so frustrated at their failure to secure
marijuana that they went on a crime spree that ultimately
culminated in the Hilgenberg murder. The state's ballistic expert oppined
that the pellets and the wads retrieved from the scene
were likely fired from the same gun that was fired
(16:28):
at the bar residence, the Curtain residence, and also matched
evidence found at the Hilgenberg murder and the pellets taken
from the.
Speaker 3 (16:37):
Victim's body, But the state didn't have much else to
work with. None of the unidentified fingerprints, footprints, or tire
prints matched Stacy or his friends, and his confession never
made it to trial.
Speaker 5 (16:53):
His confession was actually thrown out and found to be
inadmissible because of all of these horribly coercid of tactics
by the police. The judge would not allow it in.
But apparently, while he was alone in the police officer's car, Stacy,
according to this officer, again alleged to have made some
(17:17):
sort of incriminating admission to him when the two were
alone in the vehicle, and that ultimately was admitted at trial.
Speaker 3 (17:25):
The officer was allowed to testify as to what he
alleged he heard Stacy say in the car.
Speaker 5 (17:30):
These admissions, in addition to the word of two jailhouse nitches,
made up some of the only evidence against Stacy at
the time of the crime.
Speaker 3 (17:40):
In fact, the defense was turning up evidence to the contrary.
Speaker 5 (17:44):
So this case is in some ways complicated the timing
of the events, but in other ways it's very simple
because Stacy had an ironclad alibi.
Speaker 3 (18:00):
Stacy, uncle Louis, and Elmer had gone to Sue Falls
to get weed at the Frontier Bar.
Speaker 5 (18:05):
An acquaintance testified to seeing the group leave around eleven
ten pm. Then all three men left Sue Falls and
returned westbound to Mitchell. At eleven forty seven pm, Stacy
and his two friends purchased gas and beer at a
Food and Fuel in Mitchell, South Dakota, and this was
corroborated by the stores tape and employee testimony.
Speaker 3 (18:29):
Sales tape not videotape, a receipt from the Food and
Fuel marked twelve two am.
Speaker 5 (18:36):
The problem with this is that the distance between the
site of the Hilgenberg murder and the Food and Fuel
is forty three point two miles, and the Hilgenberg murder
occurred around eleven forty two pm, Stacy would have had
to cover that forty three miles in about twenty minutes,
(18:59):
and that be an average of one hundred and thirty
five miles per hour.
Speaker 3 (19:03):
But Stacy's defense found out that the clock on the
time stamped for seat was ten minutes fast.
Speaker 5 (19:09):
And given the reality that the clock was ten minutes
fast he purchased the store items, actually at eleven fifty two,
he probably would have had to drive about two hundred
and sixty to even three hundred and seventy miles per hour,
which was obviously impossible.
Speaker 6 (19:28):
How did the state get around this at trial?
Speaker 5 (19:32):
So the state was allowed to introduce prior bad acts
that Stacy had a history of speeding.
Speaker 3 (19:40):
Remember Stacy liked racing cops.
Speaker 5 (19:43):
So they said, you can sort of extrapolate from the
times and say, okay, well, let's say the shooting actually
ocurred at eleven forty pm. You know, no one knows
exactly the time that the shooting occurred, and so you know,
giving it a little bit of leeway there, and let's
say he actually got there at twelve oh two am.
(20:05):
The clock wasn't actually fast, then one hundred and thirty
miles per hour well, Stacy has all this history of speeding,
so you know, maybe it makes sense that he did
speed that fast, which again, you know, an average of
one hundred and thirty five miles per hour. I guess
that's technically possible, but strikes me as exceedingly unlikely, unlike
(20:29):
what we believe the real timeline was, which is going
about three hundred miles per hour. I mean, that's physically impossible.
You know, this is an ironclad alibi. The problem is
all of this was known at the time of trial,
and he was still convicted.
Speaker 3 (20:47):
After about eight hours deliberating, the jury found Stacy Larsen
guilty of second degree murder just after midnight on November
twenty first, nineteen ninety He was sentenced to life in
prison without the possibility of parole. Roger Gerlac told the
press he would use the same approach and witnesses for
the other two trials, but he ended up dropping the
(21:10):
charges against Uncle Louis, and Elmer was acquitted at trial
a few months later in nineteen ninety one.
Speaker 5 (21:16):
Stacy's the only one that's sitting in prison for this crime.
The alibi was enough for a one jury and not
enough for his unfortunately.
Speaker 3 (21:32):
Stacy says after he was convicted, he was devastated.
Speaker 1 (21:37):
Devastated. I didn't know what to do. I didn't know
what to do because I was just a young kid.
Speaker 3 (21:45):
Twenty years old, his whole life ahead him, and now
it was gone. So, Monica, when you went to prison,
how did that relationship end? Did you guys stay together?
Speaker 1 (21:57):
We did for a while. I just kind of told it,
you gotta go leave your life. I gotta do what
I gotta do to get out of here. I didn't
want to all want to tire downar or nothing.
Speaker 3 (22:06):
It was a very lonely start to prison for Stacy.
No Monica and Stacy says his family wasn't fully behind him.
Speaker 1 (22:14):
They pretty much convinced my dad I did it.
Speaker 2 (22:16):
Wow, So did your dad think you did it?
Speaker 1 (22:20):
Yeah? He down in his heart, I don't think he did,
but because he knows the clice and stuff, so there's
like a I don't want to say, a friendship. But
he didn't think that would lie to him. But if
they got evidence that match me, and he's probably gonna
believe it.
Speaker 3 (22:37):
Stacey figured if he was going to get through this,
he had to be there for himself.
Speaker 1 (22:41):
I had a figure something. Now, I'm not gonna let
him get away with this.
Speaker 3 (22:47):
So he started working on proving his innocence.
Speaker 1 (22:50):
I started talking to people and kind of going to
the law library reading those stuff and watched that. And
I started watching programs about like physical evidence and trials
and stuff. Try to learn the process.
Speaker 3 (23:04):
He wrote letter after a letter.
Speaker 1 (23:06):
I wrote, like other news stations like Washington Times.
Speaker 3 (23:10):
To all kinds of people.
Speaker 1 (23:12):
President Baker Obama wrote, Barry Sanders, the Gulvin Hellolan, Midwest
Innocent Projects, which companions my win and knew the White House,
all kinds of people, whoever I can write, try to
help me.
Speaker 3 (23:30):
Finally, in two thousand and four, the Great North Innocence
Project accepted Stacy's case.
Speaker 5 (23:35):
This alibi, I think, screams of Stacy's innocence. Now. It
was so convincing that Stacy's Code defendants were either acquitted
at their own trials and then the state subsequently dismissed
all charges against his other Code offended.
Speaker 3 (23:53):
But Annas has the problem with the alibi for post
conviction work is that it was already presented at trial.
In order to get Stacy back in court, he needs
new evidence that has not been litigated so shortly after
they got the case. In two thousand and five, with
advances in technology, the Innocence Project requested DNA testing on
(24:14):
the evidence, but they found out it was gone.
Speaker 5 (24:18):
All of the evidence that was in the possession of
the state's attorney's office, some of it, at certain points
we thought was destroyed, but recently we've determined that that
it was not actually destroyed, and so we are going
through testing relevant pieces of evidence as we come by them,
(24:41):
but so far that has not yielded any positive leads.
You know, we've been trying to find fingerprints, we've been
trying to get touch DNA, all sorts of evidence from
all of these crimes, and this evidence has not given
us any indication that Stacy is guilty. But it also
(25:02):
hasn't provided us with any new information that we don't
already know, and so where to go next is not
at all obvious. Now. I think the fact that we've
been working on his case for twenty years should speak
to the fact that we have not found anything that
suggests that Stacy committed this crime.
Speaker 3 (25:28):
Anna says, if they do find new evidence of innocence,
Stacy can submit emotion for a new trial.
Speaker 5 (25:35):
It's horrible because we know that Stacy is innocent. I
believe it's physically impossible for him to have committed this crime,
and yet lawyers keep hitting these dead ends. It's extremely demoralizing.
Speaker 3 (25:56):
Although the innocence project hit a wall, Stacy's life is
on up in other unexpected ways.
Speaker 2 (26:04):
I was going to ask about your cousin, Karen, so
tell me about her. Were you guys close growing up?
Speaker 1 (26:11):
Well, this is a crazy thing. We just met like
eight years ago. Nobody knew she existed.
Speaker 7 (26:19):
Stacy's mother actually knew about me, and she was eleven
months younger than my dad, so they were very close.
Speaker 3 (26:28):
This is Karen Wheeldrier.
Speaker 7 (26:30):
I am Stacy's cousin, and what.
Speaker 3 (26:32):
Stacy means by no one knew about her is that
Karen didn't know who her biological dad was.
Speaker 7 (26:40):
I found out at the age of fifty six that
the dad that raised me was not my biological father.
I always felt something was different growing up, and I
finally asked my aunt who confirmed and she told me
my biological dad's name.
Speaker 3 (26:59):
So Karen set out to find him.
Speaker 7 (27:02):
That was in twenty sixteen, August of twenty sixteen. So
since then, I've been on quite a journey learning as
much about my biological dad and his family, and it's
been very good, a very good turnout.
Speaker 6 (27:19):
Did you expect your life was now going to be
advocating for someone in prison?
Speaker 7 (27:25):
No, I certainly did not. That was probably the farthest
thing from my mind.
Speaker 3 (27:29):
Karen learned that her dad had a sister, and that
sister had a son, her biological cousin.
Speaker 7 (27:36):
I learned about Stacy in twenty seventeen, and I actually
got to meet him. In April of twenty seventeen.
Speaker 3 (27:45):
Karen went to visit Stacy in prison along with her uncle,
Stacy's father.
Speaker 6 (27:50):
What were you told anything before you met Stacy? I mean,
you're going to visit this man in prison that you
don't know?
Speaker 3 (27:57):
What were you told about him?
Speaker 5 (27:59):
So?
Speaker 7 (28:00):
I was told the circumstances of the case, as far
as what his charges were and why he was in prison.
Speaker 3 (28:09):
Karen was taken by Stacy.
Speaker 7 (28:12):
I love his laugh. He has a soft laugh that
is very warming. He's very kind, very kind man. I
cannot speak of the young man he was at the
time that all of this happened for him, But the
(28:35):
Stacy that I know this is not him at all.
Speaker 3 (28:40):
Karen wondered, could this sweet man in front of her
have committed this crime?
Speaker 7 (28:46):
It was just very hard to understand how this came about.
I have served on jury duty a couple of times,
not at the federal level, but at our county level.
I have done that, and if there's one thing that
(29:07):
I learned while doing that, it is that our judicial
system is broken.
Speaker 3 (29:13):
So she got the court turn scripts from Stacy's trial
and started reading.
Speaker 7 (29:18):
And by reading those in the beginning, it's like, well, yeah,
I mean he had to have done it if you
read this, and that's how the case was presented.
Speaker 3 (29:30):
But then Stacy started calling.
Speaker 7 (29:33):
Her, and he started sending me other information, and so
I started digging deeper and deeper. And I've made a
lot of phone calls, a lot of phone calls, a
lot of emails.
Speaker 6 (29:44):
So what made you want to keep looking? I mean
you could have just been like, I don't know this person.
I don't need to get involved with someone in prison.
Speaker 7 (29:53):
You know, that's a tough one. Just something inside that
was telling me he definitely is an innocent person.
Speaker 3 (30:03):
And now Karen says she knows it.
Speaker 7 (30:06):
This makes absolutely no sense. I mean, it made absolutely
no sense, and the more I read into all these
reports and looked at the pictures and read the autopsy,
the more angry I became. And I consider it a
righteous anger because it was very evident that he was
(30:29):
set up.
Speaker 2 (30:31):
That's so interesting. So this person who you're related to
but doesn't really know you at all now is one
of your advocates.
Speaker 1 (30:41):
Yep, by my biggest advocate I have.
Speaker 2 (30:44):
What do you think about that?
Speaker 1 (30:46):
You got to have that support you need it. It's
hard to do it on your own.
Speaker 3 (30:51):
Karen says. Once the Innocence Project got involved in Stacy's case,
the rest of his family came around.
Speaker 7 (30:57):
He has the support of his family. From those that
I have met, he does have that. It's just nobody
knows how to go about this, and that's been the
hard part. He you know, That's that's what people don't know.
When I met his mother, my aunt, for the first time,
(31:18):
she was so hopeful and she said, Stacy says, the
Innocence Project is working so hard to get his case reversed.
She said, I just I can't give up because Stacy
is so hopeful. I have to keep my hope going.
Speaker 3 (31:34):
But it's been over three decades and Stacy is still
in prison, missing out on the life he loved.
Speaker 2 (31:41):
Do you feel like it was hard to be a
dad in prison.
Speaker 1 (31:46):
Yeah, because you can't be the or them physically all
I not the way once they fall and got hurt,
or something happened at school, or you know, you can't
watch him forward or whatever, swimming ride their first fight.
It's hard on a kid because I have visitations with
(32:09):
them when they're little and a stuff, so they kind
of grew up and with me through the prisons system.
Speaker 3 (32:16):
Today Stacey is a grandfather.
Speaker 1 (32:19):
Makes them up during like activities like a fun day
when you get to interact with your kids, your grandkids
do things with them with scavengers, hunting, do some color
in stuff like that.
Speaker 4 (32:30):
Are you still in touch with Monica or did that
end friendly?
Speaker 1 (32:35):
We have contact here and there might be six months
down the role might hear from her or somebody. There's
always been contact. They all know what's going on. Every
legal letter I get from people, I sent them copies,
so they know what's going on, so they're not out
of the loop.
Speaker 2 (32:51):
Do they all support your innocence?
Speaker 1 (32:55):
Yep? I can't. What do I get out?
Speaker 2 (32:57):
What do you guys talk about? What's that going to
look like.
Speaker 1 (33:01):
I tell them, first step, you got to get out first,
and we're worry about that. You want to get too
far ahead. My priority is getting off first. I don't
even worry about what I'm gonna do out there or anything.
Don't want to get like too emotional. You don't want
to get your high hopes up and stuff like that.
(33:21):
Focus on one thing. I take one day at a time.
I'm not one of those guys. I could do a
thousand things. I'd just take one day at a time.
My case is far already.
Speaker 3 (33:44):
And it says the next steps aren't immediately obvious.
Speaker 5 (33:48):
We are just hoping that with this podcast, perhaps someone
listening will recall this crime and have information that can
help Stacy. Basically to provide us with this new evidence,
right because you know, we've done the DNA testing, We've
done the fingerprint analysis, and we are not going to
(34:08):
give up on Stacy because we believe in his innocence.
You know, this is an ironclad alibi.
Speaker 3 (34:14):
Anna says there are a few avenues that are looking
for information on She says that Stacy's attorney at trial
should have been allowed to introduce a third party perpetrator defense.
Speaker 5 (34:26):
Saying it wasn't me, it was someone else. Stacy wanted
to offer evidence that at least one and possibly two
other shootings occurred that same evening. So so there was
another shooting at a vehicle traveling eastbound on I ninety
towards Sioux Falls at around ten fifteen PM. Marks were
(34:50):
found on this vehicle that could have been caused by
a shotgun. And then again at twelve thirty am, a
witness allegedly heard a shotgun blast from a van outside
of Hartford, South Dakota. That's where those two houses were
burglarized and vandalized. So no physical evidence was ever really
(35:11):
found at the scene of either of those crimes. But
it's significant these drive by shootings were not happening a
lot in Sioux Falls, South Dakota at the time, and
so the fact that there were potentially two other shootings
and one likely caused by a shotgun shot, that's significant
(35:31):
evidence that I believe should have been introduced at his trial,
and two justices on the South Dakota Supreme Court agree
that that should have been introduced.
Speaker 6 (35:39):
And so have you guys tried to track down who
that might have been.
Speaker 5 (35:43):
We have, and we have not been successful yet in
figuring out the identity of that person with certainty such
that were able to present.
Speaker 1 (35:53):
It in court.
Speaker 3 (35:54):
But Anna is not giving up.
Speaker 5 (35:57):
His community, his family. They've all missed him, We've all
missed out on everything he could have contributed to society,
as we all know, wrongful convictions of fact. Not just
the individual that's been incarcerated, but their family as well.
You know, his son was an infant when he was arrested,
and so he grew up without a father. It's really
(36:19):
hard to for me, because it's hard for me as
his lawyer, because I want to give him the best
representation that he deserves. And his case has just been
sitting there for a while because there's nothing new that
we can think of, and so if anyone knows anything,
(36:41):
they should please contact us at the Great North Innocence Project.
Speaker 3 (36:46):
Stacy's cousin Karen, agrees.
Speaker 7 (36:48):
He needs justice and I, as a resident on this state,
deserve to have the correct person who committed the murder
behind mars, and so does everybody else he is.
Speaker 1 (37:02):
He.
Speaker 7 (37:03):
I don't know how he has kept so positive. He
has come up against roadblock and roadblock and roadblock continuously,
and he he still has such a positive attitude about
it and has never been given up.
Speaker 3 (37:24):
Although he has spent more of his life in prison
than out, Stacy says he feels more hopeful than ever.
Speaker 4 (37:32):
I mean, I've been thinking about you all these years,
so I'm just really glad that you're in a place of.
Speaker 2 (37:38):
Hope right now.
Speaker 1 (37:39):
Yep. Oh yeah, really hope, big hope. It's like hope
and dreams.
Speaker 2 (37:46):
Yeah, do you feel like this might be it?
Speaker 1 (37:50):
I'm hoping one step closer. I'm hoping. Tell me to
know something. Some making help. You can contact the Innocent Codge.
They can contact you, they can contact me. I hope
a lot of people get involved or asking questions why
this guy's in prisony. You should be there. I just
(38:11):
want the whole world no, I did not do this crime.
I'm interesting.
Speaker 3 (38:21):
Thank you for listening to Wrongful Conviction with Maggie Freeling.
Please support your local innocence organizations and go to the
links on our website to see how you can help
Stacy out. If you live in South Dakota, you can
reach out to your elected officials. This episode was written
by me Maggie Freeling, with story editing and sound designed
by Senior producer Rebecca Ibarra. Our producer is Kathleen Fink.
(38:42):
Our mixer is Josh Allen, with research by Alison Levy.
An additional production help by Jeff Cleiburn. Executive producers are
Jason Flamm, Jeff Kempler, and Kevin Wortis. The music is
by three time OSCAR nominated composer Jay Ralph.
Speaker 2 (38:56):
Make sure to.
Speaker 3 (38:57):
Follow us on all social media platforms at Lava for
Good and at Wrongful Conviction. You can also follow me
on all platforms at Maggie Freeling. Wrongful Conviction with Maggie
Freeling is a production of Lava for Good Podcasts in
association with Signal Company Number One. We've worked hard to
ensure that all facts reported in this show are accurate.
The views and opinions expressed by the individuals featured in
(39:19):
this show are their own and do not necessarily reflect
those of Lava for Good.
Hosts And Creators
Lauren Bright Pacheco
Maggie Freleng
Jason Flom
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